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(from: Community Health Workers, A Leadership Brief on Preventive
Health Programs, by the Civic Health Institute at Codman Square Health
Center, the Harrison Institute for Public Law at Georgetown Law Center,
and the Center for Policy Alternatives (May 1997)
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Community health workers (CHWs)
are community members who educate and serve individuals and groups
to gain greater control over their health and their lives. Equipped
with training about local resources, CHWs promote healthy living,
educate about how to prevent disease and injury, and help gain access
to services in the formal health and human services systems.
CHC’s breastfeeding peer counselors and community-based doulas play
a CHW role in support of underserved families. They are recruited
not only for their abilities but also because they share experience
or culture with the communities they serve. CHWs work neighbor-to-neighbor,
teen-to-teen, refugee-to-refugee, mother-to-mother. We partner with
community health or human service organizations to develop programs
that integrate CHWs into other services.
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| Chicago Health Connection provides training
for community health workers both locally and nationally. We do a
wide range of training, with consistently successful results. We are
proud to work with local agencies such as the Chicago Urban League,
Marillac Social Center, and John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County.
We also provide training for state-level programs, such as Illinois’
Closing the Gap and the Illinois, Georgia and Alabama WIC programs,
and work with national partners, such as the HHS Office of Women’s
Health, Zero to Three, Healthy Teen Network, and Best Start Social
Marketing, Inc. A recent article in the Athens, Georgia Herald-Banner
focused on a breastfeeding peer counselor program offered through
the Georgia WIC Program, trained by our own Jeretha McKinley. Please
contact
us for information about registration and updated details about
the seminar. |
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